2. Learning Objectives
• Understand the role of innovation in
organizational structures, including:
The adaption of innovation and Innovation
management
• Develop ability to detect
opportunities for innovation
• Structure convincing proposals
3. Innovation Adaption Cycle
“The early bird catches the first worm”
• This is a model that classifies adapter of
innovation based on readiness to accept new
ideas.
• The diffusion of adaptors is classified into groups
early adaptors, early majority, late majority, and
laggards.
5. Innovation Management
• Innovation management:
Is the management of innovation processes. It
refers both
to product and organizational innovation.
• A key fundamental requirement for being able
to managing innovation is to be able to
measure and assess the various aspects of the
process of innovation and its outcome
• Tools of Innovation management?
7. Innovation habits that every
Organisation needs
• Innovation takes many
shapes and forms and
there is no single
formula for successful
innovation
• Innovation requires
fostering and
leadership, in order to
stimulate innovation
fully there are certain
traits habits that
companies should
adapt.
11. Identifying opportunities for
Innovation
“fixing of
problems.”
Look for your
blind spots.
Identify where
you have been
making
decisions while
in the dark.
Highlight your
big failures.
Identify the biggest threats.
Focus on
fear. Get
scared
Look
for the
“lost
causes
.”
Identify
resource-
leakage.
Pinpoint
your
weaknesse
s.
Find your
routines,
and break
them
12. Creating Convincing Proposals
“With great power comes great responsibility”
• Once you have this great innovative idea you
then need to create an even greater convincing
proposal.
• Following these steps will make achieving this all
the more possible
14. Exercise: Barrington Brands
• Read Case Study
• Identify areas for Innovation
• Develop and present a 10 min
PowerPoint presentation (5 slides
max) to persuade Company
Management to adopt your
innovation suggestion
Editor's Notes
Innovation at work- fast track employment
Part 1
Theory based expansion of innovation in the work place
Introductory slide
Begin lecture with the learning objectives of the module.
Understand the role of innovation in organizational structures, including:
The adaption of innovation and
Innovation management
Develop ability to detect opportunities for innovation
Structure convincing proposals
Engage audience by asking for personal opinions on the concept of innovation. Stemming from this get a general idea of how important they think innovation is in the work place.
What is innovation?
“Innovation is: production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.". Edison et al
Relay the definition given by Edison et al.
Why innovation is important in the work place.
More effective products, processes and ideas
Business who innovate are more efficient- helps save money and time
Gives your business a competitive advantage- you are abatable in the market
Demonstrates a strong ability to lead and high levels of motivation and market awareness
A successful innovative company means valuable human capital
Innovation is vital in business and people who are able to be innovative are more advantageous to employers. This module aims to raise the awareness of the importance of innovating and methods which to utilize innovative thinking in work.
Slide 3- Innovation Adaption Cycle
“The early bird catches the first worm” concept
Innovation thinkers need to be ready to adapt and accept changes in order for development to follow suit.
The innovation adaption curve is a model that classifies adopters of innovations based on their level of readiness to accept new ideas. Innovative adoption characteristics are assigned to groups to show that all innovations go through a predictable process before becoming widely adopted. The groups consist of early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.
Slide 4- Innovation adaption cycle explained
The graph above reprecents (lucidly) the % of the population considered to be each type of adaptor to innovation. Engage audience by asking them where they would allocate themselves. Start by using the example of the latest peice of technology, ask them do they have it, would they queue out for the latest iphone release etc
Official descriptions of the classifications:
Adopter Category #1: Innovators — If you rapidly latch on to products when they’re first introduced, then you’re probably an Innovator. Innovators are eager to try new ideas and products, almost as an obsession. They typically have higher incomes and they are worldlier and more active outside their community. Innovators also rely less on group norms and are more self-confident; they get their information more from scientific sources and experts. This is the group that you always see waiting in line for the new Apple products, regardless of the weather or temperature.
Adopter Category #2: Early Adopters — The second group adopts new products early in the product life cycle. Early Adopters rely more on group norms and values, as opposed to Innovators who rely on their own values. They are active inside their community and they want the respect of others. This group is the one to market towards since they are the opinion leaders and encourage their group of family and friends to buy a new product.
Adopter Category #3: Early Majority — Early Majority consumers collect more information about the product and will weigh the pros and cons before they make a decision. They listen to their opinion leaders and will rely on their groups’ opinions instead of forming them for themselves. They’re an important group nonetheless and should not be ignored! Early Majority group members are positioned between the earlier and later adopters and are deliberate in their data collection process.
Adopter Category #4: Late Majority — These people are considered more skeptical. Late Majority consumers adopt a new product mainly because their friends have all adopted them and they feel the need to conform. This group is typically older and has below average income and social status. They listen to word-of-mouth communication over mass media, since they trust their friends more.
Adopter Category #5: Laggards — Laggards do not rely on group norms and values, just like Innovators. Their past heavily influences their current decision process. By the time Laggards adopt an innovation it has been possibly outmoded and replaced by something new and flashy. They are extremely suspicious and feel alienated from a rapidly changing society. This group probably bought their first black-and-white TV after color television was already dominantly used. Marketers and advertisers tend to ignore Laggards since they are not motivated by advertising or personal selling and will only purchase a new product when they absolutely have to.
Advice for how to handle people with different propensities for innovation- can be used as self criticism/ advice
As evidently suggested the level to which you are willing to adapt is affected by certain elements for example these can be self- confidence, peer reliance and interpersonal communication. Innovation is relative to the person and situation, a technology laggard isn’t necessarily a laggard in all innovative respects, it is just their propensity for innovations in technology. Working with various people on different categories of the model is enviable so here is some pointers on how to identify and work with all types of innovators
How to work with innovators:
• Track them down and become their “first followers”, providing support and publicity for their ideas.
• Invite keen innovators to be partners in designing your project.
How to work with early adopters:
• Offer strong face-to-face support for a limited number of early adopters to trial the new idea.
• Study the trials carefully to discover how to make the idea more convenient, low cost and marketable.
• Reward their egos e.g. with media coverage.
• Promote them as fashion leaders (beginning with the cultish end of the media market).
• Recruit and train some as peer educators.
• Maintain relationships with regular feedback.
How to work with the early majority:
• Offer give-aways or competitions to stimulate buzz.
• Use mainstream advertising and media stories featuring endorsements from credible, respected, similar folks.
• Lower the entry cost and guarantee performance.
• Redesign to maximise ease and simplicity.
• Cut the red tape: simplify application forms and instructions.
• Provide strong customer service and support.
How to work with the late majority:
• Focus on promoting social norms rather than just product benefits: they’ll want to hear that plenty of other conservative folks like themselves think it’s normal.
• Keep refining the product to increase convenience and reduce costs.
• Emphasise the risks of being left behind.
• Respond to criticisms from laggards.
How to work with laggards:
• Give them high levels of personal control over when, where, how and whether they do the new behaviour.
• Maximise their familiarity with new products or behaviours. Let them see exactly how other laggards have successfully adopted the innovation
Each of these adopter personalities is very different. It’s vital to know which one you are addressing at a given time.
Slide 5- Innovation Management
Innovation is a top priority for many CEOs, who look to new products as the engines for growth and transformation. However, translating aspirations into reality requires treating product innovation as a key business process linking upstream to overall portfolio management, and downstream to product development and commercialization
What is innovation management?
Innovation management is based on some of the ideas put forth by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, working during the 1930s, who identified innovation as a significant factor in economic growth.
Innovation management helps an organization grasp an opportunity and use it to create and introduce new ideas, processes, or products industriously. Creativity is the basis of innovation management; the end goal is a change in services or business process.
Ask audience if they can name and tools for management of innovation?
Innovation management tools
A key fundamental requirement for being able to managing innovation is to be able to measure and assess the various aspects of the process of innovation and its outcome
By utilizing innovation management tools, management can trigger and deploy the creative capabilities of the work force for the continuous development of a company. Common tools include brainstorming, virtual prototyping, product lifecycle management, idea management, Phase–gate model, project management, product line planning and portfolio management.
(Develop the use of two tools- expand on how they would be used)
Product life cycle
The product life cycle is a description of the life of a product, from its launch to its final withdrawal from the market. Using this analysis will help a business decide whether it is worth investing further in a product.
(Get audience to choose a product/idea developed or made up and take them through the steps you would go through with the PLC in order to decide whether or not you would develop this idea/ product)Stage 1 – Introduction & launch
Stage 2 – Growth & development
Stage 3 – Maturity & competition
Stage 3 – Maturity & competition
Slide 7- Innovation habits that every organisation needs
Innovation takes many shapes and forms and there is no single formula for successful innovation. In many cases the introduction of a (successful) innovative product or service owes as much to good fortune, or the unique talents of a specific individual, as it does to sound planning and the application of rigorous methods. However, on deeper examination, there are underlying behavioral factors that have a significant impact on the process of innovation.
The habits (use real life examples to elaborate on the habits- enegage audience by getting them to supply examples of each ideas)
1. Be unreasonably aspirational
EXAMPLE- Netflix was another brand with an unreasonably aspirational vision. It had built a successful online DVD rental business, but leadership saw that the future of the industry would be in video streaming, not physical media. The management team saw how quickly broadband technology was evolving and made a strategic bet that placed it at the forefront of a surge in real-time entertainment. As the video-streaming market took off, Netflix quickly captured nearly a third of downstream video traffic. By the end of 2013, Netflix had more than 40 million streaming subscribers.
2. Acquire capabilities
EXAMPLE-Tesco, the UK grocery retailer, made three significant digital acquisitions over a two-year span: blinkbox, a video-streaming service; We7, a digital music store; and Mobcast, an e-book platform. The acquisitions enabled Tesco to quickly build up the skills it needed to move into digital media. In the United States, Verizon followed a similar path with strategic acquisitions that immediately bolstered its expertise in telematics (Hughes Telematics in 2012) and cloud services (CloudSwitch in 2011), two markets that are growing at a rapid pace.
3. ‘Ring fence’ and cultivate talent
EXAMPLE- Walmart-Four years ago, the retail giant’s online business was lagging. It was late to the e-commerce market as executives protected their booming physical-retail business. When it did step into the digital space, talent was disbursed throughout the business. Its $5 billion in online sales in 2011 paled next to Amazon’s $48 billion.
In 2011, however, Wal-Mart established @WalmartLabs, an “idea incubator,” as part of its growing e-commerce division in Silicon Valley—far removed from the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters. The group’s innovations, including a unified company-wide e-commerce platform, helped Wal-Mart increase online revenues by 30 percent in 2013, outpacing Amazon’s rate of growth.
Slide 8- Habits continued
4. Challenge everything
EXAMPLE-Think of Apple’s transformation from struggling computer maker into (among other things) the world’s largest music retailer, or eBay’s transition from online bazaar to global e-commerce platform. OR n 2007, car-rental company Hertz started to deploy self-service kiosks similar to those used by airlines for flight check-in. In 2011, it leapfrogged airlines by moving to dual-screen kiosks—one screen to select rental options via touch screen, a second screen at eye level to communicate with a customer agent using real-time video.
5. Be quick and data driven
EXAMPLE- U.S. Xpress, a US transportation company, collects data in real time from tens of thousands of sources, including in-vehicle sensors and geospatial systems. Using Apache Hadoop, an open-source tool set for data analysis, and real-time business-intelligence tools, U.S. Xpress has been able to extract game-changing insights about its fleet operations. For example, looking at the fuel consumption of idling vehicles led to changes that saved the company more than $20 million in fuel consumption in the first year alone.
6. Follow the money
EXAMPLE- P&G collaborated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to create statistical methods to streamline processes and increase uptime at its factories, saving more than $1 billion a year.
7. Be obsessed with the customer- Rising customer expectations continue to push businesses to improve the customer experience across all channels. Excellence in one channel is no longer sufficient; customers expect the same frictionless experience in a retail store as they do when shopping online, and vice versa.
Slide 10- Identifying opportunities for innovation
Group work session
Allow for 5-10 mins to come up with ideas. Get each group to deliver results.
Slide 11- Innovative opportunities
“fixing of problems.” Innovation need not be strictly the development of new products or services; there’s plenty of opportunity to be had by focusing on existing business methods, processes, structure and methodologies.
Elaborate on indentifying the opportunities.
Look for your blind spots. Where are you lacking information which leads to missed opportunities in your marketplace, failure to provide stellar customer service or excessive operating costs? Undertake a simple “information inventory,” with the idea of identifying where you are lacking in the critical insight you need to be innovative.
Identify where you have been making decisions while in the dark. As part of inventory, identify the situations where you’ve missed opportunities, have made the wrong decision, or have been misfocused because you simply had the wrong information, or have had the right information at the wrong time. You could call this your insight deficit. That’s one of the first areas that you can focus on for innovative opportunities.
Highlight your big failures. Where did things really go wrong: where are there excessive issues concerning quality, customer relationships, time to market or other aspects of your organization where you have simply failed to do what should have been done? If you take the time to find and confront your biggest foul-ups, you’ll discover plenty of opportunities for innovation.
Identify the biggest threats. undertake an assessment of the biggest challenges that you might face on a six month, one year and five year horizon. Where might new competitors emerge? What current shortcomings might cause you to miss opportunities? Where might “blurring” within your industry or market sector occur as a result of continuous product or service evolution?
Focus on fear. Get scared. Look to your competition for insight on what you might be missing. What is the most innovative thing that they are doing? What levels of risk and creativity are they willing to deal with that you aren’t? And what is the real impact if you don’t do something drastic right now to catch up?
Look for the “lost causes.” Where are you simply wasting a lot of time, doing things that you shouldn’t be doing? For example, do you have a sales force that spends more time looking for information and insight into specific customers than they do selling? A marketing team that is still focused on fighting the brand wars of yesterday as opposed to the ridiculously fast changing consumer preferences of today? Where are you simply spending too much time undertaking futile activities?
Identify resource-leakage. Where is valuable talent being unnecessarily diverted? Is your management team constantly fighting fires, rather than focusing on strategy and opportunity? Do you have a customer service staff that is busy putting data into twelve different databases, rather than fixing customer problems? Take the time to figure out where you are wasting a lot of valuable time doing things you shouldn’t be doing.
Pinpoint your weaknesses. List the things you can’t do, but that you should be able to do. Where can you see shortcomings in your capabilities compared to the competition or high fliers in other industries? Who are you losing business and employees to and why? And what could you be doing differently to avoid these problems?
Find your routines, and break them. What are you doing that is absolutely, positively ridiculous – but you keep on doing it because you’ve always done it that way?
Slide 12- Convincing creative proposals
Move onto next slide to see steps to creating a proposal
Slide 13- Creating convincing proposal
The goal of a proposal is to gain support for your plan by informing the appropriate people. Your ideas or suggestions are more likely to be approved if you can communicate them in a clear, concise, engaging manner.
Planning is key
1 define the reader- Who will be reading your proposal? What level of familiarity with your topic will they have? What might you need to define or give extra background information about?
What do you want your audience to get from your proposal? What do you need to give your readers so they can make the decision you want them to make?
2 Define the issue- It is clear to you what the issue is, but is that also clear to your reader? Also, does your reader believe you really know what you are talking about?
3 Define your solution- Once you set the issue you're addressing, how would you like to solve it? Is the solution you're offering logical and feasible? What's the timeline for your implementation?
Keep elements of style in mind- Depending on your proposal and who'll be reading it, you need to cater your paper to fit a certain style. Think about the level of jargon (specialized technical language) you should employ. Effective writing steers clear of jargon unless you simply can't explain a concept without it.
5. Make an outline-Make sure you know all of the relevant details before you start.
Writing the proposal
1 Start with a firm intro-hook the readers in. Grab attention right away
2 State the problem- emphasise the urgency of your problem and why it should be solved now
3 Propose solutions- “state of affairs section” don't beat around the bush, be exact and offer your solution strongly
4 Include a schedule and budget- Your proposal represents an investment. In order to convince your readers that you're a good investment, provide as much detailed, concrete information about your timeline and budget as possible.
5 Wrap up with a firm conclusion- This should mirror your introduction, succinctly wrapping up your general message.
6 Edit and proofread work- Make sure to take time look for mistakes and errors that could downgrade the quality of your proposal.
Slide 14- Case Study
Handouts provided about the company. Barrington Brands is a new company looking for innovative ideas in order to increase business activity and profitability. Take time to read through and identify areas of innovation for them in terms of how they should approach new markets, attract more product lines, establish their name in the wholesaling market and efficiency ideas for providing a distribution service over a relative large area considering the small size of the company.